


14,000,604 Futures Where we Lose

by FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Man does he need a hug), Alternate Futures, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, GOD THIS MOVIE, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Stephen Strange, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt pretty much everybody, I deal with my feelings by creating more of them, I need a hug, Literally just an excuse for me to kill characters and write painful things, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Yeah so read at your own risk, because that makes sense, everybody needs a hug, why have i done this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls/pseuds/FriendlyNeighborhoodFangirls
Summary: Stephen saw 14,000,605 futures. The one we saw was painful enough (You're lying if you tell me you don't pin fanart of That Scene on Pintrest obsessively because you don't know how to deal with the fact that you have to wait like a year and a half).But what about the others? The millions upon millions where the heroes lose. Forever. Officially.I explore those futures. I cry. You cry, hopefully, if I've done my job.





	1. A Bargain

In many of the first futures, Stephen tried to use the Time Stone.

The moment Thanos appeared through the portal, Strange was subtly opening the Eye, even as he spoke. “Yes, you’re much more of a Thanos.”

Thanos turned to him, and Stephen flicked a finger, a thin bracelet of green light twining his wrist.

The titan noticed, of course, but didn’t seem affected. “I take it the Maw is dead?”

Stephen nodded, pursing his lips and slowly forcing the time loop towards instigation. Thanos smiled, and Stephen shivered, but forced himself to continue.

“This day,” Thanos said, raising the gauntlet, “exacts a heavy toll.”

He went to close his fist.

Frantic, Stephen _pummeled_ at the power of the Stone, trying to force it into the correct alignment for his loop. Time, time, he needed _time--_

“Mr. Doctor Strange, sir!”

With the quiet sound of metal clanking, Peter Parker came tumbling from atop the crashed ship. A flash of webbing caught itself in the metal glove, preventing Thanos’s fist from closing for an instant.

That second was all he needed. Stephen surged to his feet, twisting his hands and time froze around them. Peter jumped backwards through the air, rewinding like footage. As he watched the boy, Stephen saw Stark retracting a hand, as though he’d been reaching for Peter.

He turned his gaze to Thanos. “Are you prepared to bargain, titan?”

Thanos cocked his head softly, a deep laugh rumbling from his throat. “Ah, the Master of the Mystic Arts. I am a traveler of all realms, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, all powerful, Stone-wielding, titan of supposed truth. I know. I might not be able to win, but I can lose forever. We all can.”

Thanos nodded. “You and the insect and the cursed one. I could squash you easily.”

Time jumped backwards, and Peter fell back up to the top of the ship once more. “You’re trapped, Thanos.”  
“Oh, but you said that to Dormammu, didn’t you? I’ve spoken to the creature. I destroyed him.”

 _Destroyed Dormammu_? Not possible… uncertainty stirred in Stephen’s gut.

“You, who weaves time so skillfully. You rewind reality, you gaze into it, you read it. But can you manipulate it?”

 _No._ Stephen’s eyes widened.

“You play with time. But what if this became a reality without time?”

The loop jumped backwards again, and Thanos closed his fist in a flare of red light just as Peter was shooting his webbing.

Stephen felt a stab of complete and indescribable agony flash through his mind and form, and he cried out as time was ripped from his grasp. He collapsed, unable to stop the scream bursting from his form.

It was the cry that destroyed them.

Peter, that too-caring child, turned towards Stephen when he yelled. He wasn’t looking where he was falling, didn’t see Thanos raise his hand to snatch the boy from the air as though he was nothing more than the arachnid he mimicked.

Through his haze of horror and pain, Stephen heard repulsors firing, heard the shout of “hands off!”

But with another twist of reality and Thanos’s growl, Stark’s suit was falling off his form, dissolving into nothing but feathers that fluttered into nothingness in moments. Stark fell, and Peter screamed.

Stephen wasn’t sure who’s bones he heard breaking.

This was not a situation where they won.


	2. The Gauntlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second one. More pain here, sorry.

Peter saw what the dancer-man was going to do. 

He would have done the same, he supposed. For a moment, he hesitated, worried the gauntlet wouldn’t come off without his help, but Mr. Stark beside him fired the repulsors behind his iron gloves as he spoke. 

“Okay, Quill, you gotta cool it right now, understand?” Stark snarled as the dancer-man, Quill’s, eyes grew dark. “Don't. Don't engage. We almost got this off!” Stark was frantic, almost scared. 

Wrong. Mr. Stark shouldn’t sound that way,  _ never  _ sounded that way. 

So Peter reacted. He let go of the gauntlet and flipped over Thanos’s arm, bowling Quill back into the sand of Titan. The man fought him with furious, frantic, desperate blows, and Peter could feel his form shaking. 

“Let me go!” Quill bellowed. “ _ Let me go!”  _

Peter’s heart clenched, but he knew what he had to do. He released the legs of the Iron-Spider suit, throwing himself off of the man and flicking web after web to pin him down. 

“I’m sorry,” he said as Quill writhed animalistically. “I’m really sorry,  _ I’m really sorry--”  _

“Kid!” 

Tony’s voice was sharp, but there was understanding in it. Peter was reminded of a scene from Harry Potter as he tore himself back towards Thanos and the rest of the heroes:  _ it takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends. _

Peter swung back in just as Tony ripped the gauntlet off. Thanos seemed to sense it, and his clouded eyes cleared, blazing with fury. 

The alien-girl cried out, falling off of the titan’s shoulders. Thanos roared, gaze fixing on Mr. Stark and the gauntlet. 

“Watch out!” Peter yelled, but Stark was already moving, rolling away from the titan’s blow. 

“Come off it, asshole!” Tony growled, chucking the gauntlet to the side as he moved again, blasting himself back. “You’re not unstoppable.”

“Your tricks mean nothing,” Thanos hissed, and Peter’s eyes narrowed. 

Strange opened the portals beneath him again, and Peter flipped forward, allowing himself a moment of ecstasy as he flipped between realities. Dimensions.  _ Dimension hopping. _ Awesome. 

He avoided Thanos’s gropes this time, pummeling the titan with kick after kick. But the blue dude, Drax, wasn’t so lucky; Thanos caught him by the throat even as Drax plunged his knives into the titan’s arms. Thanos squeezed. 

“Hey!” Peter swerved out of the path of the next portal, shooting out an iron leg to balance himself. Thanos didn’t look at him, and Peter tried to ignore the gurgling sounds the smaller alien was making within the titan’s fist. 

“Splitter web.” 

Peter aimed carefully, leaping towards the titan and spraying two streams of webbing over either eye. Thanos roared and threw Drax to the side. Peter wanted to watch and make sure the alien was alright, but a fumbling swipe from the temporarily blinded titan had him tumbling across the ground. Ripping away the webs with angry fists, Thanos leapt towards him. 

Peter moved. A mistake. The spider-legs that erupted from the suit to assist him in his dodge were the perfect handholds for the furious alien, and Peter was yanked from the safety of the sky. His suit groaned as three of the legs bent and twisted.

“I admire your bravery, little spider,” Thanos said, his voice low but carrying. 

Peter struggled, and Thanos’s fingers slipped enough for him to turn and point his web-shooters--

The titan’s other hand enveloped his, and for a moment it was almost reminiscent of a comfort, of the hand-holding between friends. 

And then Peter’s wrist snapped along with his weapon, and firey pain shot up his arm. He gagged, trying to stop a scream as Thanos slammed him against the ground. 

“A shame to lose one so young. You remind me of my daughter, little spider.”

Peter snarled, squirming again, but Thanos only pressed down harder. “The one you  _ killed?”  _

The small warmth that had bloomed in the titan’s gaze disappeared, taking something else with it. Thanos ripped one of Drax’s knives from his arm…

And plunged it into Peter’s chest. 

Or tried to.

The knife slid against the material of Peter’s suit, slicing against it but not penetrating it. The suit cracked, breaking like metal but cracking through the rest of it like fabric. The lights in his mask faded as the suit died, and fear climbed up Peter’s throat. 

Thanos raised the knife again. 

Peter turned his head. With the knowledge of that incoming thrust, he had only one thing he wanted to do. Mr. Stark was moving, racing,  _ flying  _ towards them, but Peter knew he couldn’t reach them, not in time.

And Peter found that he was terrified. He’d thought, when he’d stayed on the ship, that he was prepared to lay down his future for the sake of the universe. Oh, he didn’t regret it, but right at this moment, as he was about to die, Peter  _ did not want to go.  _

Peter wished he had the breath to cry out to Stark. To say something, anything, to that man who’d done so much for him. Tony yelled something Peter couldn’t hear. 

But Thanos could. 

The knife paused as Thanos looked towards Stark, and the pressure on Peter’s chest lifted just enough for him to clear the ringing from his ears. 

Just in time for Peter hear Strange cry, “Stark,  _ don’t!”  _

But there was nothing but hardened fury and determination in Tony’s gaze, no semblance of logic to stop him from rolling not towards Peter and Thanos, but towards the gauntlet. 

He slammed it over his own fist, and his form  _ exploded  _ with light. 

“Get off my kid,” Tony said, his words his own but his voice something else, now.

A blast of purple energy threw Thanos off Peter, sending the titan tumbling against one of the stone pillars. Another blast had the pillar collapsing atop him, trapping Thanos for the moment. 

Peter rolled over, grinning even as he hacked racking coughs and clutched his broken wrist.  “You did it, you--”

Tony screamed. 

And Peter started running. There was purple energy racing across Stark’s suit, turning the blue glow of his arc reactor to a sickly, dangerous violet. Stark clenched his eyes shut, the cry dying as streaks of red lightning jumped from his mouth. 

Perhaps, if it had been one Stone, things could have been different. The arc reactor might have absorbed it, might have syphoned some of the damage and the power. But four? 

The part of Peter that wasn’t completely trained on  _ getting to Tony help Tony save Tony  _ told him maybe he should be running away instead. The power of four undirected Infinity Stones was unstable and dangerous, even for those who weren’t holding them. 

And maybe he would have been fleeing, if the person holding them hadn’t been Mr. Stark. 

The suit began to fracture, blue and purple light ripping through Stark’s skin and shattering the metal from within. 

He had moments.  _ Moments,  _ and Peter  _ wasn’t going to make it-- _

But Strange did, and was ripping the broken Iron Man glove from Tony’s other hand to expose his skin. Strange grasped it and let out his own cry, purple and blue light racing across his pale skin and glowing in his multicolored eyes. 

They shared the power, and for a moment, time slowed. Green light seemed to seep from the air around Strange, marking the arrival of a fifth Stone, called by Strange holding the light of its brothers. 

They couldn’t hold five. They couldn’t hold four. 

It was as certain as the knife plunging towards Peter’s heart. They were going to die. Even if Peter could make it in time, could share the terrible burden of the Stones as well, they wouldn’t have enough strength to hold Infinity.

Peter had been scared of dying. 

But it was nothing,  _ nothing,  _ compared to the terrible, shuddering horror that paralyzed his form at the knowledge of Stark’s death. 

Stark. Mr. Stark. Peter had never called the man by anything other than that, never addressed him by his first name. He’d thought he’d have time. He’d thought… he’d thought there would have been other names, other titles, the ones growing in his heart when he looked at the man. 

Strange crumbled into blue crystal, nothing but a mound of gleaming sand that blew away with the wind of the Power Stone. A small green gem materialized in the air and fell to rest atop the mound. 

Peter. Mr. Stark,  _ Tony,  _ had never called him by his name. Peter had never realized how much that meant to him, how much he’d been waiting for that acknowledgement of their closeness, of their respect. It had always been Parker, the boy, the kid. 

_ My kid.  _

Tony’s eyes snapped open. But they weren’t his brown, intense ones, no; a glaze of orange, swirling color masked his irises. 

“TONY!” Peter could use the name, use the name for the first and last time as the unbeatable, unphasable, unbreakable man collapsed, as the light faded from his eyes and left them blank and utterly colorless, as the pink and yellow of his skin leached away, as the glow of the gauntlet died and fell from his hand. 

Peter was on his knees, gathering the limp body of his friend, of his mentor, of his  _ family _ into his arms. He saw the gauntlet call the green Stone to it, saw it flash with newfound power, but couldn’t bring himself to care. He might have been crying, might have been roaring, but there was such silence in him. Unending, eternal silence.

Tony looked up at the red sky with empty eyes, his form completely colorless. Peter was kneeling in all that remained of Doctor Strange, his skin dusted with blue sand. 

Words clawed their way up his throat, trickling into the silence around him. “Wake up. Wake up, please Tony, you have to get up now. Thanos is gonna get out, he’s gonna come back; you can’t sleep. We have a job to do, Tony, c’mon.”

The man didn’t respond, limp in Peter’s hands. 

“You can’t, you  _ can’t  _ do this to me, Tony. Please.  _ Please  _ wake up, please. You promised you’d let me fly the suit, remember? We were gonna race, and Rhodey said I’d beat you, and you acted all betrayed. And then you admitted you thought I’d win, too. I was gonna ask if we were ‘there’ yet. We’ve got to be there now, right?” Peter hugged the body close, burying his face in the man’s shoulder. It smelled like grease and sweat and determination. It smelled like Tony. 

“Please… please Tony… I never got to tell you… I never… I need you, Tony, please, you have to get up,  _ please.”  _

Someone approached, hesitantly. Peter didn’t move, didn’t look up from the empty eyes of his mentor, even as whoever it was laid a hesitant hand on his shoulder. 

“He saved you.” It was the blue lady, the cyborg one. Peter vaguely remembered being excited when she’d arrived. 

_ He saved you. _ Tony always saved him. And this time it had meant his life. 

“It’s not your fault,” blue-lady said, her voice soft.

“Yes it is,” Peter replied flatly. 

The woman sighed and settled next to him, close but not touching. “It’s not. Him dying for you is not something to feel ashamed of.”

Anger sparked in that abyss of emptiness within him. “What do you mean?” Peter hissed. “What could you possibly mean? He’s dead because of me, he’s dead because I couldn’t-- because I didn’t-- he’s dead--”

“Yes,” the blue lady said. “I know how you feel, spider boy. Better than anyone. But your father died for  _ you _ . No one else. Not for the universe, not for a city, not for honor, not for himself. You. And it was his choice, his decision to die so you could live. Do not disgrace him by taking responsibility for that decision. The choice of a man to die is the thing that makes him sentient, and he chose you. Be  _ thankful,  _ child, not guilty. Be honored.”

“I…” Peter trailed off, because how could he? How could he keep from wishing Thanos had just stuck him with that knife faster?

“It hurts. I know.”

Peter didn’t respond. He couldn’t, his throat was clogged with sobs, his lips tingling with the salt of tears. 

“We will remember your father, Spider. We will all remember him.”

Peter didn’t correct her. He just nodded mutely.

“You have to get up now, k--child.”

He was thankful she’d realized how much calling him that would hurt, but shook his head.

“I know. I know. But you have to. My own father is returning.”

Thanos. 

The abyss disappeared in a blazing inferno of rage, unending, cataclysmic rage. Thanos. He could blame Thanos, he could blame Thanos for everything. 

Peter stood, and turned. 

Thanos was rising from the pile of rubble, purple blood trickling down his temple, eyes wild with madness. His gaze was fixed on the gauntlet, brushing past the… dead… and the dust. 

Peter stepped in front of the golden glove, raising his uninjured hand. The undamaged spider legs unfurled from his cracked and ripping suit, and he raised his bloody face to stare the titan down. 

They would not win, but he would go out fighting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I killed them all? Oops? Yell at Marvel before you yell at me.


	3. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if the Mind Stone had been obtained by the Black Order? And what if they used it to its full potential?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooh, man. Ooooooh man oh man. 
> 
> So, slightly similar to the last one? Not really at all? Eh. I promise we'll get some more of the other Avengers soon, I just really like the Spidey, Stark, and Strage trio on Titan with the gaurdians. 
> 
> This is shamelessly painful, but you weren't really expecting anything else, I hope.

In some of the futures, Stephen saw the Captain. 

 

Steve should have been expecting this. Logically, no one would assault Wakanda without armies upon armies, no one wanting to take the city would arrive without blood to spare. 

But the Black Order didn’t want the city. They didn’t care about Wakanda, or about the civilians, or about the resources. 

They just wanted the Stone, and Steve should have  _ seen  _ it. 

The Black Order didn’t announce their presence, didn’t howl battle cries over the dome. They slipped in quietly, just a few alien monsters with far too much power, slinking through the fields of Wakanda. 

Steve figured it was his fault, as he dodged the three-pronged spear of the creature attacking him. He’d had the group spread out, ready for invasion, to be on the lookout for the approaching battle. If they were going to fight, they were going to have every advantage. So only he and Wanda had stayed with Vision as the princess began her work on the Mind Stone. 

Grief twisted Steve’s gut, and he almost stumbled against Proxima Midnight’s next blow. They’d emerged so quickly, just when Wanda had turned to Vision, smiling that finally hopeful smile. If they’d had just  _ one more second--  _

No. Steve couldn’t think about that right now, he couldn’t think about the blood and the red and the dying light; he had to keep the enemies occupied to give Vision a moment of mourning. In those first distracted moments, they’d lost the comms too, and there was no backup coming. The princess, Shuri, fought beside him, but she was an inventor, not a warrior, and though Steve was grateful for the help she gave, the girl did little to even the fight against the two aliens. 

Two aliens. It concerned Steve that there were only two, when he’d seen three at the bus station. Who else was in danger? Or had the third, the fish-looking one, perished of his wounds?

The larger, clumsier alien threw itself at him, slamming its fists against his already cracked Wakandan shields. Cracked vibranium. 

Clumsiness didn’t matter; the alien’s strength was enough. Steve saw Midnight’s strike coming, but he had his shields up against the crushing power of the gargantuan creature’s attack. The three spines sunk in and around Steve’s knee, and he growled in pain. It was just a graze, but enough for Proxima Midnight to slam him to the ground and trap him by his own form. 

Shuri yelled a warning and Vision looked up from the body in his hands, no tears in his eyes but looking anguished all the same. 

The android’s gaze landed on the two creatures, clad in blood and blades, and darkened. Steve craned to pull the spear from his leg, but stopped as the aliens turned their attention to Shuri. Cursing, Steve forced himself to an awkward kneel, the weapon sliding through his skin, and blocked the blow that would have killed the princess. 

“Get help,” he hissed, and  _ threw  _ her against the windows of the lab, which broke and had her tumbling from the room.

The Order looked after her, but, as Steve wished he’d realized earlier, they were not after civilians. They were not after him. 

Proxima Midnight drew something from across her back; the weapon the fish-looking alien had held in the station all those hours ago. She lept across the room, shoving the spear deeper into the ground (and Steve’s leg) as she went. 

Steve could only hope Vision was holding his own; he had a gorilla to worry about. The large alien, Cull Obsidian, Steve thought dully as he writhed to dodge and attack the creature, was obviously the strongest of the Order. And until he could get this damn spear out of his leg and stop it trapping him, Steve had his hands full. 

Steve never got the chance to touch the spear.

And Vision only held his own for so long. 

An immeasurable amount of time later, Steve heard the ripping of wires and the sparking of metal. Vision hadn’t even screamed, and Steve didn’t blame him. What was left to scream for?

Obsidian ceased his relentless pummeling of Steve’s now crumbling shields, standing straight to watch Proxima approach. Steve lunged for the spear, pulling against it, trying to ignore the pain throbbing in his leg. 

“We have the Stone, Corvus,” Midnight was saying. “Bring us back.” 

Ah. Not dead then. 

Obsidian grunted something, and Midnight nodded. “You’re right. We have the Stone; we might as well use it.”

Steve growled, finally ripping the weapon from the floor and from his flesh. It gushed anew, but Steve ignored it, brandishing the spear at the creatures before him. 

Midnight laughed, the Time Stone glowing in her hand.  “Your tenacity is to be admired, Captain. It will be useful, we think. And if not, well, the dog can always be put down.”

Steve snarled. “I only have to last a few more minutes.”

“You don’t have seconds.”

The last thing Steve saw before Midnight pressed her other hand against his chest was Bucky’s fearful, furious gaze through the blue light that had materialized around them as the door to the lab slid open. 

But his friends were too late, Bucky was too late, and the two aliens disappeared. 

Taking the Time Stone and what was left of Steve Rogers with them. 

Tony was just about done. 

No, he was definitely done, more than done, one-thousand percent done. 

“So, you want Strange  _ gone  _ when Thanos gets here?” Tony asked incredulously.

Quill nodded, looking at him like he was an idiot. Tony, just a bit, wanted to blast the man to the other side of the atmosphere. 

Tony rubbed his face. “You want me up top with the rock, I get that. You want the kid on up on the spaceship for ‘optimum surprise mode,’ I get that too--”  _ though I wish the damn kid would have just  _ gone home _ when I told him to-- _ “but Thanos is coming for the Stone. He’s gonna expect to see Squidward and the necklace right away. If we want the element of surprise, Strange is gonna need to meet him.”

Quill crossed his arms. “We want the Stone as far away from that nutsack as possible.”

“Yeah, well it’s a little late for  _ that.  _ A couple of feet won’t matter if it destroys the rest of our plan.”

“My plan.”

“ _ Right,”  _ Tony growled. “You’re plan.”

Peter tried to hide a snicker beside him, and the level of ‘done’ increased another hundred percent. 

Strange cut in. “So I’ll--”

A flash of blue light split the sky, beaming down to the ground only a few yards from them. Tony spun, stepping in front of Peter as his suit forming up around his hands and face, expecting Thanos. 

What he was met with was worse. 

Much worse. 

Three aliens stood tall before them, just like they had in Greenwich Village. Tony recognized one, the hugeass one Wong had gotten rid of. 

( _ Wong, you’re invited to my wedding.  _

Tony would like that. Really, he’d like that alot.)

But the aliens weren’t what Tony focused on. They weren’t the problem, not even the glow of the Stone in the horned one’s hand (Oh god, that meant… Vision,  _ Jarvis--)  _ was the problem. 

The problem was Steve Rogers, standing tall and strong  _ beside  _ the enemy, despite the bleeding wound in his leg. 

The problem was the too-familiar blue sheen of his eyes. 

“Strange,” Tony said. 

“I know.” Strange did that annoyingly flashy wizard movement, and twin shields of orange patterns erupted around his wrists. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter said hesitantly, stepping out from behind him and slipping on his mask. “Um, isn’t that Captain America?”

Tony didn’t want to admit how much it pained him that this was the first glimpse he’d had of his friend (former friend? Honestly, Tony was too tired to care) in two years. “Not anymore, kid. You know about the Battle of New York?”

Peter nodded. 

“Yeah, that--” he pointed to Steve-- “is what the Mind Stone does.” Tony swallowed. “So get ready, kid. He won’t be pulling his punches this time.”

“Who are you?” one of the aliens asked; the horned one. A female. Well then. 

Tony spread his arms. “The welcome committee, of course. Didn’t you recognize us?”

“Where’s the Maw?” said another, the not-Hulk one. 

Tony held up a hand to silence Quill before the idiot spoke. “Sorry, I think it’s our turn for questions! What are you doing here? And with such a obedient little Captain?”

The aliens hefted rather nasty looking weapons. “We,” said the horned one, “are the Black Order. And you have killed our brother, though he still did his job. So we shall bring you as a gift to Thanos as well.”

“Ooo, do I get a bow and everything?”

The Order hissed, and the horned-one with the Stone raised it. Steve raised the black and silver shields (Wakandan?), his face twisted into that familiar grimace of determination. 

Tony fired up his repulsors. 

“So much for the plan,” Peter muttered beside him.

“My plan,” said Quill. 

Tony grinned. “New plan. ‘Kick names, take ass,’ and for the love of God, don’t let them touch you with the Mind Stone.”

It went well at first, it really did. There were six of them against the three Order and Steve, and they held their own, even killed one of the aliens. Things were going alright, for a while.

Until Peter got controlled, and things got to be a whole lot more complicated. 

Tony had been keeping Steve occupied, and doing a good job of it. The Capsicle getting to Strange (though the wizard probably could have held his own, they needed him fighting the Stonekeeper) or, God forbid, Peter, would have been a complete disaster. 

Tony knew how Steve fought. He wished it was only because he’d worked alongside the man for years, but, well, that wasn’t really the case anymore. The old man had only beat him in the first place with help, and Tony was able to avoid damage being done to himself or to Steve as they fought. 

And then a very boyish yelp came from behind him, and Tony whirled, just in time to see the alien he’d learned was Proxima Midnight (goddamnit Strange, stop knowing everything for two seconds, would you) plunging a spear towards Peter’s chest. 

“ _ PETE!”  _

Tony  _ threw  _ Steve off him, forgetting every semblance of the strategy he’d begun to build. Not the kid,  _ not the kid-- _

Peter met Tony’s gaze, eyes fearful, one hand extending towards him. 

Tony roared, his repulsors firing, but even the blasts wouldn’t arrive fast enough to stop that weapon’s decent--

But the spear only tapped Peter’s chest, sinking down through the suit just enough to graze the skin beneath. 

Peter’s eyes glazed over blue, but all Tony could feel was utter relief. 

Until a taser web sent him slamming against the pillar of stone behind him, currents of electricity twitching through his limbs, and Tony began to feel inconvenienced as well. 

“It’s me, kid!” 

FRIDAY’s voice flickered in and out in his ear. “Boss, there’s enough voltage flowing through that…” she fuzzed out, “... only so many more… take damage to the wiring.”

“Got it, FRIDAY.” Tony ripped the webbing from his shoulder and neck, chucking the sticky substance to the side. He rolled just as the kid shot another splatter of web against the rock. Steve hurled himself at Tony again, and Tony ducked behind him to avoid the next stream of webbing. He winced as Steve jerked and stumbled at the current flowing through him. 

“Sorry, old man,” Tony muttered, dodging the next slightly woozy swing of the Wakandan shields. 

Peter came swinging in over the other man, the eyes of his suit narrowed in an expression that probably would have been sinister if Tony didn’t know the puppy-eyed boy beneath. 

The one who now belonged mind and heart to a certain Infinity Stone. 

_ Shit.  _

He could only be glad he’d disabled instant kill on the space donut earlier that day. The kid didn’t know, of course, but Tony had access to the Iron-Spider suit from his visor. Tony had had a moment, well a few moments, where he realized the possibility of his death, of all their deaths, was quite great. And despite everything he still had to do, everything and everyone waiting for him, all he could think about was the moment he’d seen his father murdered. 

The moment he’d reacted in anger and tried to kill someone in return. 

The moment that had been the worst mistake he’d ever made. 

So he’d removed instant kill, hoping Peter would never know. The kid wouldn’t touch it, normally, the little angel that he was, so Tony hadn’t worried. It had just been a precaution, one of Tony’s little overactive actions. 

Hell, was he glad for it now. 

 

Tony had tried to avoid thinking the words, but the must have drifted through his unconscious mind at some point, because things did indeed get worse. 

Thanos showed up. 

It was saying something that Tony hardly even glanced the titan’s way when the giant swirly cloud of portal creepiness appeared on the landscape beside him. But, to be fair, he was a bit busy fighting his kid and his friend and two giant aliens, one of his repulsors broken and the other bound by sticky webbing, while trying to avoid getting caught in the spells and portals of the wizard beside him. 

Until suddenly he was only fighting two aliens. 

Steve stumbled, his eyes clearing, and looked around him in confusion.

Tony looked to Thanos then, quite befuddled, and was met with a gauntlet sporting five Stones. 

_ The control must be released when the Stone Changes hands-- _

Peter fell out of the sky, and landed on him. 

“Ah! What happened, what, that was really… woah, weird, I kinda, woah--” 

“Kid.”

Peter stumbled to his feet, pulling off his mask and backing off Tony with wide, embarrassed eyes. Tony rolled to his feet, cursing. 

And then Peter wrapped his arms around Tony, hugging him hard even as Thanos began to speak. 

Tony didn’t hear the first part of the titan’s speech because he was just too damn distracted. 

And he didn’t hear the second part because he really needed to get the taser web off his broken gauntlet where the stuff was sending quite painful bursts of electricity through his body. 

“Eh, kid,” Tony managed, “do you think, maybe, you could deactivate your--” he winced-- “electric webbing?”

Peter stepped back, cocking his head slightly, his curls flopping to the side, before his eyes flooded with so much guilt and terror Tony wanted nothing more than to go back in time and keep his damn mouth shut. 

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I--Karen deactivate taser webs--I didn’t, I didn’t mean--Mr. Stark are you okay, did I--”

“It’s okay, kid.” It was Tony who grabbed Peter this time, simply because he couldn’t stand that pained stutter. 

“T--Tony?” 

Tony turned around to see the confused face of none other than Steve Rogers. 

“Hey,” was all Tony could think of to say.  
And then Steve was hugging him too, and Tony hoped his mouth wasn’t hanging too far open. 

“How touching,” came a rumbling voice behind him.

The three of them turned, just as Strange floated to the ground behind them.

“Uh, who’s that?” Steve muttered out of the corner of his mouth, raising his shields.

“Thanos? Or the wizard?”

“The wizard.”

“My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, and I’m the Master of the Mystic Arts. Not a wizard, Stark.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Strange.”

Thanos slammed his hand against the ground of Titan, effectively silencing them. “Which one of you prattling mortals is the Stonekeeper?” he bellowed.

The seven of them looked at each other. 

And then every one of them raised their hand. 

“Peter put your hand down,” Tony said.

“That’ll just make me more of a target, Mr. Stark.”

“Damn it, I hate it when you do that smart thing.”

Peter grinned a little, and Tony felt infinitely better. 

Thanos just smiled, looking at them, and the two that remained of the Black Order raised their weapons. “I will find the Stonekeeper. Even if I have to kill every one of you to do it.”

Steve spoke first. “I had a feeling you were going to do that either way, sir.” Then he lowered his voice and added for the rest of them, “If anyone gets controlled, getting hit on the head hard enough should snap them out of it.”

Right. Natasha had done that to Clint way back at the beginning. 

“Let’s get to it!” Tony said, raising his one working repulser and beginning to rise from the earth. “The last time I almost died was thirty seconds ago! C’mon, guys, that’s embarrassing!”

 

The next fight went faster. 

Probably because Tony couldn’t remember most of it. 

He remembered up to Thanos reaching out to Strange with the Mind Stone. He remembered meeting eyes with Steve, desperately trying to tell him that  _ Strange was the Stonekeeper  _ and if Thanos controlled him the fight was lost. 

He remembered the old man leaping in front of the gauntlet, surrendering his mind once more. 

And that was when things went blurry. 

He was vaguely trying to recall those details, those events that got him to… wherever it was he was now. Dark. Empty. Space? Was he in space? 

No, he could hear a voice. 

A familiar voice. Was it familiar? 

There was a slice of light through the dark, fluttering. It revealed hazey shapes, like curtains opening and closing to reveal the world beyond. Tony felt something hit him, slap him across the face. But he couldn’t see anything in the darkness all around him, now that the light had disappeared. 

Wait.

Tony pried open his eyes, and the light returned. Red and blue and gold flashed in his vision, far too bright, and he let them close again. It was easier that way. God, he was so tired, how long had they been fighting?

Something slapped him again. 

That was kind of inconsiderate, wasn’t it? Hitting a person when they were trying to sleep. Maybe if he slept he could remember…

Tony could feel blood pumping in his ears, too hot, too fast. Was that why… what had happened? What was he doing here, why was he so tired, what was happening, who was hitting him, why was everything agonizing and numb at the same time,  _ why couldn’t he remember-- _

_ I’m dying.  _

Shit.

He didn’t like the sound of that. Nope, nope, let's go right back to not remembering  _ that  _ little blip of information.

Tony didn’t know a lot, not anymore, but he did know that he didn’t want to die. Not now, not here, not with so many things to do, not after everything he’d survived. 

Steve had just come back, and  _ hugged  _ him, for God’s sake. He had to get that straightened out. He’d just met Strange; he wanted to have a drink with the man, get him to explain all this magic bullshit. 

Someone was touching him with trembling hands, someone pulling him and hugging him close, and he thought that person was speaking to him. 

The voice above was urgent, desperate. 

Something about that voice made Tony try a little harder to make sense of the words. 

“Open your eyes, open your eyes, Mr. Stark. You can’t die on me.”

Peter. Was that Peter? He really didn’t want to open his eyes; they hurt. Everything hurt. Damn, everything hurt  _ a lot.  _ What the hell had happened?

Maybe Peter would tell him…

“Please, please, Tony, you have to open your eyes.”

Tony? The kid never called him that. This had to be important…

Of course it was important! He was dying!

_ Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. _

Tony pried open his eyelids, wincing at the light, but damn it if he was going to make the kid  _ plead  _ again. 

“That’s it! C’mon, Mr. Stark, look at me.”

Tony did, forcing his vision into focus. Peter looked down at him through a torn mask, and Tony could see one of his reddened eyes and the blood trickling from his temple. 

“Ow.”

Peter laughed breathlessly, hugging Tony closer. Tony tried to raise his arms to hold the kid back, to comfort him, but trying to engage his abdomen sent agony splicing up his form. 

“Yes! Yes, oh my God, I thought you were dead--”

“Ow,” Tony muttered again. “What… what happened?”

Peter’s eyes grew hard. “The Captain. Thanos got control of him, and he…” Peter’s eyes drifted down to Tony’s midsection, but snapped up again immediately. He swallowed. “He got you pretty bad while you were trying to help Strange. But you knocked him out, and I webbed him up good.”

“Thanos…”

“Fell through one of Strange’s portals. He’s somewhere else on Titan, currently, but he’ll be back. The rest of the Black Order is dead, and he really didn’t like that.”

“Are you okay?”

Peter chuckled weakly. “Me? I’m fine. But… some of the space-people didn’t make it so good.”

Tony found it very important that he know if Quill was one of the dead ones. “Who?”

“The dancing guy. Quill. And Mantis, I think her name was.”

Tony closed his eyes for a moment, unable to stop a bit of grief from leaking through the wall of his mind. Peter panicked. 

“No, no, don’t sleep Mr. Stark--”

Tony snapped his gaze open again as quickly as he could. Jesus, he really was dying… “It’s okay--” he coughed wetly-- “No sleeping here, kid.”

Peter rubbed a hand over his torn mask. “I… I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark.”

“Stop that.” Tony sat up slightly, grunting inwardly.

“But he was attacking  _ me.  _ You shouldn’t have--you wouldn’t of been--if I hadn’t--”

“Stop. You have nothing to be sorry for, idiot.” Tony’s words didn’t falter at all; something told him he had an essential point to make at that moment. “Probably jumped in front of you, didn’t I?”

Peter nodded, tears gathering in his eyes.

“And how is that your fault?”

“I…” Peter wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, smearing blood across his face.

“Exactly.” Tony couldn’t hold himself up any longer. He slid back down to the orange sand, panting slightly. “Just Tony Stark, being a idiot.”

The tears spilled down Peter’s cheeks, sliding along the edge of his mask where it was still intact. 

“Not your fault, ‘kay?” Tony rasped. “Never your fault.”

Peter squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving. 

“ _ Okay?”  _ Suddenly, Tony found that making Peter understand this, making him accept it, was the most important thing he’d ever do. 

“Okay,” Peter whispered. 

Tony felt warm stickiness trickle down his back. God, breathing hurt. Part of him wanted to crane his head to see the damage, but… he was so tired. 

So, so tired. 

It was terrifying. 

_ Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump. _

He hurt. He hurt so much, he hurt like nothing he’d ever known before. He wanted it to stop.  _ Please,  _ he wanted it to  _ stop.  _

“You said--” he coughed blood onto the broken fragments of his helmet-- “I was trying to save Strange.”

Peter laughed brokenly. “You did, don’t worry. He’s good. Time Stone and everything.”

“Good.”

_ Thump thump, thump thump. _

He had things he needed to do. Things he needed to say. 

He could say some of them now. 

“Hey, kid?”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark?”

“I’m proud of you.”

The boy stopped breathing above him. Then Peter pulled him closer, sending more fiery agony shooting through Tony’s body. But Tony didn’t care. How could he? The boy shook his head, over and over, mouthing something. 

“I know I said…” There was blood in Tony’s throat, blood in his mouth. “...that I wanted you to be better…”

“No.”

“But you’re already better, Peter. You’re so… you’re so  _ good.” _

Peter was sobbing now, his mask fully off, his curls matted as his breath came in ragged bursts. 

“You’re going to be the best of us.”

“Don’t,” Peter gasped. “ _ Don’t _ .”

_ Thump thump. _

“I told Pepper… I dreamed we had a kid. I didn’t… tell her we already had one.”

_ Thump. _

A noise ripped itself from Peter’s throat, something animalistic. “No, no no nononono. Not again, not again, I’ve lost too many… please, please, oh God, Mr. Stark,  _ Tony,  _ tell me what to do, tell me how to help.”

“Take care… of yourself, kid.”

_ “NO, YOU CAN’T-- _

”

_ Thu… _

_...mp. _

_ Th… _

_ … _

_ … _

_.. _

_. _

  
  
  


Peter sat back.

And then he just… stopped.

Wind whistled across the uneven surface of Titan, taking the sand with it in a sparkling, reddish haze. 

It stuck to his hands, matting with the blood that covered them. 

Peter wasn’t watching it. He wasn’t watching anything. 

Red. So red, everything was red, the sky, the earth, the stones of Titan. Their suits, his vision, the blood. 

The wind blew sand into it. 

His filthy hands smeared reddish streaks onto the golden mask in his hands, meant to cover the still face in his lap.

Sand wedged itself into the joints of the metal spider legs unfurling from the back of the suit. They curled around him, brushing the broken iron shell he held as gently as human hands.

Peter’s heart beat. 

His breath felt like it was pulling in nothing but vacuum. 

He would have stayed that way until Thanos returned and struck him down. He wouldn’t have noticed. 

He vaguely noticed Strange kneeling next to him, aware of him setting his cloak gently around the boy’s shoulders. Strange didn’t say a single word, simply touching Peter lightly on the shoulder and sitting beside him. 

But someone else came over. And when they spoke, Peter noticed. 

“What--oh my God…” 

It was the Captain. He remembered watching the man rip into Tony, remembered yelling and pummeling him with webbing before catching Tony’s falling suit and swinging him gently to the sand. 

He must have hit his head. Hard enough to pull him out of the Stone’s control. 

Peter forced himself to take breath. And another. 

Strange’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“Do you remember?” the wizard asked, standing to face the Captain. 

“I… no. Did I--” a hard swallow. “Was this  _ me?”  _

Silence. Peter’s hands clenched hard on the metal in his hands.

“I… I’m so--”

Peter was on the edge of a void, looking down at the fiery madness below. He could hear his blood beating in his ears, hear the Captain voicing words, and he  _ knew,  _ in that moment, that he was about to fall. If Steve said  _ I’m sorry,  _ if he dared utter those words, Peter could see what he’d do. And it terrified him, but he was stepping out over the precipice and he couldn’t turn back.

“--sorry.”

Peter roared. 

The sound ripped itself from his throat, and maybe it was a word, but his cry was so ragged with fury and grief it was unrecognizable. 

He threw himself at the Captain, mask closing over his head, the suit’s visor sharpening his sight. Wrists thrust forward and iron legs extended, Peter had no plan and no thought in his mind as he flew at Steve. 

The Captain might pull his punches, but Spider-Man was finished with that. His mercy had died with the man on the sand.

Steve didn’t  _ get  _ to be sorry. He didn’t deserve to blame himself, didn’t deserve to  _ mourn.  _ None of it. The pain was for Peter, and Pepper, for Strange and for Happy and for all who’d loved Tony. It was all he had left, all he had left of that man painted red on the sand before him and he  _ wouldn’t give it to Steve.  _

The man said something, and Peter realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Kid,” the man said as he dodged Peter’s assaults. “I didn’t know--” grunt-- “you’d feel that way, I’m--” he cut off before he apologized again, swallowing thickly. “But we can’t fight each other; we have to prepare. Thanos is returning; he can create portals with the Space Stone.”

Peter couldn’t bring himself to care. He leapt at Steve, throwing blow after blow, relishing every connection.

“Peter,” Strange finally said, gripping his elbow as he raised it for the next punch with a soft ribbon of light. “Peter, you need to stop.”

Peter could only snarl, genius, witty brown eyes flashing in his vision. Eyes now empty. Dead, sucked away by the man before him. 

Strange ripped him away from the Captain. 

Peter hit the bottom of the abyss, and some part of him  _ screamed  _ at what he was about to do.

“Karen,” he rasped so quietly he might have only thought it. “Activate Instant Kill.”

 

_ Hey, kid. It’s me, obviously. Wasn’t really planning on doing this, but here we are. Just as a precaution, you know.  _

_ I hope you’re hearing this a long time after I record it, I hope you pulled it up accidentally and won’t even listen to this dumb thing all the way through. But on the off chance… eh, not such an off chance. Whatever, Tony, just get to the point. _

_ The thing is, kid, if you’re hearing this, I’m probably dead. And now I’m here to lecture you from beyond the grave! Just one of my many perks: ‘will tell you what to do even when dead.’  _

_ God, that’s slightly morbid. Really hope I’m not dead.  _

_ But anyway, I want you to know it’s okay. It’s going to be okay,  _ you’re  _ going to be okay. You don’t need to do this, don’t want to do this. I don’t want you to do this, either.  _

_ Don’t destroy yourself for me, Pete, okay?  _

_ You’d never forgive yourself, and I couldn’t bare that. _

_ Shit, I keep forgetting I’m dead. Pretend I said that all ghosty-like, okay? ‘Iiiiii CouldN’T baaaAAAre tHaaaaaaaT.’ Actually, scratch that, I just sound retarded.  _

_ Just… remember that, okay? I forgive you. Now work on you forgiving you. And killing won’t bring me back. It won’t avenge me, not in the way that matters. Only you can do that, Peter, and I’d rather no one else but you. _

_ Oh goddamnit. I fucking love you, kid. Don’t you go dying before you can take over my company. Official heir and all that.  _

_ Maybe I’ll be there to talk you through it, who knows.  _

_ I hope we have more time, but I’m glad we had what we did.  _

 

Steve was, quite frankly, terrified. 

There was a boy on him, pummeling him with blows that held too much force. This child was as he, and nearly as skilled. But that wasn’t what scared Steve; it was the grief. And the  _ blame.  _

_ You don’t deserve to mourn him.  _

Tony was dead. Oh, god, he was  _ dead.  _ And… Steve had done it. He couldn’t remember, but he’d done it. 

Part of him thought the kid was right. How could he apologize when he’d  _ murdered  _ his friend, his former friend, on the field of battle? 

The self-destructing, apocalyptic fury in every one of the boy, Spider-Man’s, movements made him dangerous. Even to Steve. 

His hand was stuck to the pillar behind him, his legs sticking the ground. And the webs just kept coming, throwing him back, pinning him down, even with Steve’s super strength. This kid was going to kill him. And part of Steve knew he deserved it, knew he’d lived far too long already. But that didn’t keep him from fear. 

Spider-Man was upon him, pummeling him with blow after blow, whispering something under his breath. 

“Peter!” It was the wizard, stopping the kid’s next punch. “Peter, you need to stop!”

But Steve knew it was no use. Even as Strange pulled Peter away from Steve’s trapped form, he struggled with the desperate determination of someone on the brink. And Steve could not fault him for it. 

Somewhere, Steve felt… comforted. He wouldn’t die for anger, or for greed. 

He would die for love. 

Peter thrust his wrists forward, and Steve braced himself.

The boy stopped. 

He just… stopped, the eyes of the mask flickering. 

No one moved, no one breathed. Strange still held Peter, orange light pulsing around his wrists. For a long, long moment, the only sound was the wind of Titan and the drumming of the sand pelting the rock. 

And then Peter crumpled, his mask folding away as he slumped to the earth. 

The  _ sound  _ that ripped itself from him tore Steve’s heart in two. 

He slowly, carefully, extricated himself from the webbing, trying not to hear the wracking sobs curling through the silent air of Titan. Sounds he’d prompted, sounds part of him yearned to emulate. 

Steve was going to walk towards them. He was going to say something, going to comfort the boy, comfort himself. He was going to fight, going to win.

But a hard, steel hand gripped his shoulder, and with a flash of yellow light and a haze of blue, his body was no longer his own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops.  
> Sorry not sorry.


	4. The Multiverse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Long time no update; I wasn't planning on adding to this, much. I was focused on my other fic, and ran out of inspiration... So, much thanks to loki_the_pan_icon for the prompt (I'll get to the rest of them, soon)! This is the one where Strange lets them die for the Time Stone like he promised. If y'all have any ideas, let me know; they don't have to be defined at all. 
> 
> Warning: Slightly gruesome description of injury, here. Be cautious!

Stephen tried to move.

He really did, he tried to stand, to fight, but his body had its own priorities: namely, staying conscious. So mostly he listened and tried to remember how to breath, and how to see through the black spots dancing in his gaze, silhouettes falling ever downward towards a lethal landing. 

But he had to get up, he knew, he  _ knew,  _ because someone was up, someone was fighting, someone was dying. 

_ Fight, Strange!  _

If his wound had been physical, he would have coughed blood as he sat, but as it was, the pain only seared through his consciousness. Stephen snarled and fought his eyelids until they rose. 

Just in time to see the blade embed beneath Tony Stark’s ribs, and the world screech to a halt. 

“You have my respect, Stark,” came the booming voice across Titan’s orange sands. Stephen’s hands found purchase beneath him, and he shoved himself upward. Claws raked along the inside of his brain and he barely kept in his scream. Not the time, not the time, he had to fight, he had to  _ save-- _

“When I'm done, half of humanity will still be alive.” 

Stephen’s pulse was pounding in his ears like the sea throwing itself against its confinements, roaring  _ do something do something do something-- _

“I hope they remember you.”

_ DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING-- _

Stephen desperately gripped his sling-ring, lifting his hand and forcing his consciousness through the energies of their reality and towards another, any other. But he felt as he had at the start of his training; feeble, strained, and maladroit, and for the first time in many, many months, the energy didn’t listen. 

And the handler of time had run out of it.

Thanos’ fist closed into the Power Stone with a boom that splintered through dimensions before drilling straight into Stephen’s mind. 

Everything happened so quickly. 

A glimmer of red and blue. 

A flash of concentrated power. 

The wrong life extinguishing. 

And the twisted, shattered howl: “NO!”

It felt like the abrupt stop of a crashing vehicle when time flipped to stretch slowly as Stephen realized that the scrap of jeweled material was a boy, and the howling animal was Tony Stark. Stephen’s pounding heart dropped; he couldn’t tear his eyes off Peter Parker, lying so still on the sand, his youthful energy seeping into the earth as though he was bleeding out. 

So, so still. 

“Pete…” Stephen could hear Stark’s voice on the wind, quiet and disbelieving and old. 

Thanos looked on with undefined emotion in his eyes, but neither man saw him. For a moment, Stephen found he  _ knew  _ the dead boy, knew beyond this reality, and a stab of grief had him falling back to his hands. 

_ Oh. We’re using our made up names… _

_ If aliens end up implanting eggs in my chest and I eat one of you, I’m sorry. _

_ A dance-off? Like in footloose? _

_ Magic. Magic again! Magic with a kick! Magic with a-- _

“A child who would die for his father to live,” rumbled Thanos. Stephen looked up with disgust, with hatred that had also materialized transreality; that was empathy in the alien’s voice, empathy he  _ didn’t get to have.  _

Stark didn’t look up. His hand clenched around the blade still penetrating him, the man slid towards the body on the ground, his mouth moving soundlessly. 

“I remember that loyalty,” Thanos finished. “Though the death was in vain.”

There was another flash, and then only two creatures felt the sand pricking against their skin in Titan’s wind. 

Stephen fell back onto his knees. 

Somewhere, he knew he would have died for that man, without grief. Somewhere, somewhen, he knew he had. And for a reason that shouldn’t have bloomed in his soul, Stephen felt like giving up. A sliver of his will slipped away to join the the bodies at Thanos’ feet, and the pressure of the Time Stone felt immensely heavy from where it rested in the pocket dimension Stephen had forced into existence. 

When Thanos turned and his all-encompassing gaze on him, Stephen was struck paralyzed. It was only when the Titan advanced in an echoing gait that the sorcerer realized the feeling wasn’t from fear; it persisted with the glow of the Power Stone. Stephen fought, but without tapping Time, he could do nothing against such Power, and Thanos kept coming. 

There was a stall in his gait as he stepped over the limp, outstretched hands of two forms, their fingers just barely brushing in the sand of Titan. 

Thanos folded his legs and sank down before Stephen, leaning over to meet his frozen gaze. He extended a too-gentle, enormous finger to catch the tear that had gathered and slipped down Stephen’s cheek with the cry of life being extinguished. 

“And now there’s only one thing left to do,” the titan rumbled, his voice still tender. “I’ve yet to accomplish what I came her to do.”

“Come off it,” Stephen ground out. “I’m not giving you the Stone.”

Thanos’ face hardened. “I had hoped we could spare the persuasion.”

Stephen smirked, then, not caring if his terror showed. “You think you can hurt me? You think you can  _ persuade  _ me? I am Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme, and nothing if not patient. I’ve died a thousand times, I’ve seen a million futures, I’ve lost my own, and I’ve found it again.” His eyes drifted to the sand behind Thanos as his voice grew low. “A sixteen-year-old boy died for this Stone. A spaceship full of criminals lost everything for it. And a man sacrificed the happy-ending he should have had so many times to protect it.” 

Stephen met the eyes of the Mad Titan and bared his teeth. 

“I will, too.”

Thanos rocked backward with a nod. “I have no doubt of your word,” he said.

“Good.”

“So I suppose I shall have to go at this a new way.”

Suddenly, Stephen found himself released from the Power Stone’s hold; he lurched forward onto his hands and quickly leapt to his feet, already reaching for defensive magic. But Thanos didn’t attack, he simply narrowed his eyes in thought, and spoke. 

“Your amulet was a fake, so where is the true Stone? You would never have left it on Earth, and you act as though you can choose to give it to me, but it is not on any of your persons. So where?”

Stephen’s heartbeat sped up, and Thanos’ jaw split into a satisfied grin.

“Oh,” said the titan. “Of course.”

Stephen lunged towards the inter-dimensional energy as Thanos closed his fist in a flurry of blue and red light, the Reality and Space Stones working in tandem. He just barely harnessed it quickly enough to fall clumsily into his astral form and tumble into the dimension that had cycled to be temporarily beneath theirs. 

Stephen slammed against the webbed ground of the new universe, the sound of his landing warped and strange, a screech of violin strings and the roar of a jet plane. Fighting to stand up, Stephen’s astral form pushed the groping tendrils off of his ankles and lurched forward. The ground moved like a treadmill, sensing his alienness and fighting against him as it tried to get enough purchase on his form to suck him down. Stephen tapped the energy from his own dimension, and sent himself sideways with the force of ocean currents. 

Thanos was somewhere and everywhere and nowhere, and Stephen had to find him. The titan had disappeared into the vast multiverse, and the power of the Stones would direct him to their brother if Stephen didn’t find a way to stop him, to fight him. 

Dimensions meshed together like an array of bubbles, pressed together at the seams, the borders thicker in some areas. Stephen, during their time on the ship, had pushed a quantum straw into those gatherings of void, and blown, stretching the dimensions apart to create a tiny new bubble of his own design. That was where the Time Stone now nestled, calling out to its similar energy signatures, the strain on the quantum structure its own indication of the Stone’s location. 

Stephen’s disadvantages just kept piling up. 

He smiled sardonically with more than a bit of hysteria, then shoved through the film between worlds again. The filmy layer of pure consciousness prickled at his mind, and Stephen grimaced as he slipped between another world. 

Cool grass whipped against his ankles, and Stephen found himself looking out on a plain of long, golden strands that so easily could have been Earth. Homesickness mixed with the desperation in his gut, and Stephen gripped his own wrist tightly. 

_ God. I want to go home. We all should have gone home. I… I don’t want to die here.  _

But he would. 

If he had to, he would. 

This was all he had, now; to fight, to die, to stop Thanos. 

Stephen set out across the field, the grass parting before him. Unnervingly, the more he moved, the more it felt like fur. Cringing, Stephen closed his eyes and called out over the dimensions, listening for the disturbance of Thanos’ physical body. 

It didn’t take long; the titan couldn’t be more than seven universes down the inter-dimensional spiral, and Stephen could easily travel along the directional pull. He pulled his fingers through the air and leapt, splintering through the flesh of this dimension just as the field cleaved like some sort of mountainous earthquake. 

He fell, smashing through dimension after dimension, each a quivering blow to his consciousness that stole a few seconds from him as he fell. He focused his energy as he felt himself enter the final dimension, drawing it with him from every universe he’d fallen through. 

When Thanos looked up at his tumbling form, Stephen roared and released every iota of it. 

The titan screamed, holding up his arms to shield himself, but the energy cleaved through him, and Stephen kept  _ pushing and pushing and pushing-- _

Thanos closed his fist, and suddenly Stephen’s magic had no purchase. He hit the ground hard, and forced his head to turn, forced his vision to focus. 

Thanos was on his knees, panting, a dome of light set up around him with the purple power of one Stone. Stephen rolled onto his side and pressed his palms into the ground, moaning quietly. 

“You truly are the Master of the Mystic Arts,” Thanos rumbled, his voice tight with exertion. Stephen did his best to bow, mockingly. 

“At your service.”

And then he was leaping again, and Thanos was falling again, but not away from him, not anymore; this time, man and titan collided in the void between universes and it shook the very fabric of reality. Stephen heard the hearts of every being in the cosmere skip a beat, and it was deafening.

“I can feel the Stone,” Thanos said, and his voice was the turning of the Earth and the supernovas of distant stars and the rippling skin of monsters. “You think you can hide it from me?”

“No,” Stephen replied in the crash of the waves and the pull of gravity and the slow erosion of planets. “But I think I can keep you from it.”

“What’s to stop me from killing you now and finding it without conflict?”

Stephen threw himself away from the titan, crashing into another dimension. The denizens cried out in a language Stephen didn’t understand, and he didn’t blame them. “Everything,” Stephen snarled. “You kill me, and the pocket dimension closes forever, sealing the Stone into nothingness.”

There was more to it than that, which was the only reason Stephen hadn’t killed himself to close it. Closing that dimension would close the universes adjacent to it, as well; Stephen would kill exponentially more than Thanos ever would. 

And it terrified him. 

“I  _ will  _ beat you,” Thanos snarled. The two of them slammed through another dimension, slamming into a spire of otherworldly elements and crashing downward. Stephen shoved himself away from the alien, only to collide with another craig. 

On instinct, his hands flashed out to catch himself. 

His instincts betrayed him. 

Stephen’s left hand caught the razor end of the spike of earth, and it wasn’t the spike that shattered. Phantom pain screeched through his astral body as the weight of his body  _ jerked  _ to a halt, born aloft by all that was left of his palm. He had been threaded onto the pilliar like a bead on a gruesome string. 

Stephen’s physical form screamed out through the air of titan, clutching his bloody palm as the wound ripped open in his own dimension. For a moment, he flickered, close to losing Thanos as his astral form sought to return to his body. He almost let it, memories of the crash scraping themselves against his skull, because  _ his hand-- _

The edge of his pocket dimension was being broken. 

Stephen’s astral eyes snapped open. 

He listened, and didn’t doubt that every being in this dimension could hear Thanos breaking through his walls. He was running out of time,  _ running out of time-- _

The skin of his palm was still splitting, the tendons and bones still warping and stretching, for his weight pulled him ever further down the spire. Nausea rippled through him, and he wondered facetiously if he would keep falling until his hand was left in two separate ribbons and he was free from this prison. 

Thanos was getting in. 

_ Move! _

But he couldn’t; the hand that held his sling-ring was the hand that bore him aloft, the one that sent blood dripping up his physical arm as it slid down his astral form. 

Stephen looked up at his mutilated limb, and prepared himself. Then he wrenched himself sideways, kicking out with his legs, trying to shred through the last of his flesh and free himself. But the shock was distributed, and his very skin  _ stretched,  _ the pain reverberating down his arm. He didn’t have the leverage; another pull would only slip him further down the spire. Stephen succumbed to the nausea, the meager contents of his stomach joining the blood covering his physical body. 

Thanos was in. 

“NO!” Stephen screamed, and two dimensions heard it. 

_ I told you,  _ said the turning of the Earth and the supernovas of distant stars and the rippling skin of monsters.  _ You can do nothing.  _

“TRY ME!” Stephen roared, pain and desperation and determination mingling into a terrifying tone. 

The dimension the titan had just set foot in was  _ his.  _

And it would obey him. 

Stephen closed his eyes once more. 

 

Stephen Strange sat comfortably against the New York park bench, thinking about everything and nothing at all. His eyes tracked along the passers-by, noting as best he could where they may have come from. Most of them were Terrens, he figured, but he did have to sort out the Kree and the Clavians. A few bore the telltale coloring of native Xandarians.

He got up, deciding he’d waited long enough to storm the deli, and began to weave through the usual Manhattan throng. Wong enjoyed Tuna; Stephen figured he buy him a BLT. He’d give Christine the turkey, and he’d cycled through the first board of sandwich types searching for the Ancient One’s favorite (which she refused to tell him) and it was time to start on the second. 

Stephen slipped into Delmar’s Deli-and-Grocery, breathing in the scent of warming bread and melting cheese. His mouth started watering. 

Ordering didn’t take long, though the Clavian behind the counter gave him an annoyed look. As Stephen stepped back to wait, he returned to examining the creatures flowing around him. After a few minutes, a boy (Terren), entered, asking for a number five with pickles and a ritualistic smashing. He seemed familiar with Delmar, and sent a smile Stephen’s way when he saw him watching him. 

After paying, the kid wandered about the deli for a moment. As he passed through the light of the window, Stephen thought he saw a flash of iridescence on the boy’s skin, navy and ruby. Stephen blinked, surprised, and the illusion was gone. 

The boy’s sandwich arrived, and he disappeared, but not before locking eyes with Stephen. 

Everything faded between their gazes, in that moment, and Stephen could read the boy’s lips forming  _ he’s coming  _ with absolute certainty. 

He started, and Delmar called his name and shoved a paper bag into his ring hand. Stephen jolted as a flash of pain startled through that palm, almost dropping the bag, but it was gone as soon as it had come. 

Stephen shook himself, and made a note to ask the Ancient One about it when he made it back to the Sanctum. 

Leaving the deli, he made his way to a slightly less packed area before tucking the bag of sandwiches beneath his chin and fishing about for his sling-ring. Dragging it through the resistance of space-time, Stephen was about to jump to the sanctum when he heard someone call out. 

“Strange!”

Stephen turned, his eyes searching the crowd until snagging upon a taller alien with purplish skin and a frankly horrific chin. He closed his portal, stepping down onto street level. “Hello?” he asked, “do I know you?” Surely he would have remembered a face like  _ that.  _

“Where is it?” the alien demanded, his voice low and deep. It struck a chord deep within Stephen, and he heard his own voice whispering  _ stop him. Hate him. Kill him.  _

Slightly concerned by the direction of his thoughts, Stephen shook himself. “Where’s what?”

The alien paused, towering before him with calculating eyes. Then he nodded. “Oh, clever; not even you know, here. And if I leave to find you, you’ll be able to change the makeup of this place, again.”

“Not a doctor anymore,” Stephen said, snapping his slightly-shaking fingers. “But I can find you a psychiatric ward, if that’s what you need.” 

“What I need,” the alien rumbled, crouching down to look him in the face, “is a Stone.”

“Not many of those to be found in New York, but try the park.” Stephen jerked a thumb behind him and moved to walk off. 

“The Stones work in this dimension, too, you know,” the alien said, as though he’d never been speaking to Stephen at all. “I wonder if you recognize me, now.”

Stephen spun, just about ready to send this irritating idiot to a dank swamp somewhere, then froze as a golden gauntlet crystallized into existence on the alien’s fist. Three Stones, far to familiar in shape and aura, gleamed up at him from within it, and Stephen knew his name. 

“Thanos,” he breathed. 

“At your service,” the alien said with the air of someone making an inside joke. 

_ STOP HIM HATE HIM KILL HIM. _

Stephen didn’t know why he spoke the words he did, then, but within his awareness, was no other choice. 

“Let’s play for it, then.”

 

Stephen Strange fought to stay conscious, hanging limp from the craiging earth of this strange dimension. He had long since abandoned trying to gain purchase on the featureless stone, any movement driving him closer to the void of unconsciousness. He was reaching out, extending his astral awareness to his own dimension, forcing his influence. 

If Thanos killed the Sorcerer, it was all over; the Stone _was_ the Sorcerer and striking him down would reveal it as such. So Stephen forced the Sorcerer's words, forced him to distract the invader.  _ Let’s play for it, then.  _

He was in too much all-encompassing agony to try and decide on a proper game, so all he was able to conjure in the Sorcerer's hands was a deck of cards. 

 

Stephen Strange looked down, fanning open the cards in his hands. They were unnerving things, the backs illustrated in the style of a stain-glass window and portraying two limp forms, a suited boy and a metal-clad man. For some reason, Stephen couldn’t bring himself to examine it any closer. He turned the deck over, and found symbols drawn like splatters and drips of ink or blood. 

His hand sent out a pang again, and Stephen shuddered. 

“What,” the alien before him boomed, “a card game for the universe?”

“Why not? It’s no worse than a dance-off.” Now where had that come from?

“Well, what game do you propose, then?” 

“Hearts, of course,” Stephen said with a shrug.

 

Stephen could feel blood all the way down his leg, now. But he still focused the warped energies of his dimension, forced the cards in the Sorcerer's hands to obey his will. The Sorcerer shuffled, his hands unshaking.

 

“Ace of clubs,” Stephen said, flipping the starting card onto the wall behind them. Thanos moved to stand adjacent, two world-altering beings clutching fans of paper as the rest of the world faded away. 

“Four of clubs.”

“Jack…”

 

Stephen’s weight snapped another tendon of his hand, and he screamed. Three cards disappeared from the Sorcerer's hand. The next round, the Sorcerer gained five hearts. 

 

“Seven of hearts.”

“Ace of hearts,” Stephen growled, reluctantly accepting the points. And then Thanos played a diamond, and Stephen found himself with the freedom of the short-suit. 

“Queen of spades,” he smirked, slapping the trump onto the pile, and the confidence in Thanos’s gaze faded. 

 

Stephen’s next breath sucked blood into his trachea; he’d bitten almost through his tongue. He coughed, and the movement jerked at his flayed hand. 

 

Blood splattered Stephen’s hand, and he stared at the cards as the red liquid permeated them.  _ What?  _ But he was winning; he  _ was _ , and he knew it meant everything. 

Stephen played his last card. 

And Thanos took the pile. 

“Seven hearts,” Stephen announced. 

“Nineteen,” Thanos said. 

The universe flickered around him, and Stephen sat back, his breath releasing in a long exhale.. “I win.”

 

Stephen’s eyes slid shut, and he smiled.

 

“You should have done better than an card game to distract me.”

It only took one strike. 

Stephen died holding his heart in his hands. 

His body disappeared, his dimension disappeared, and a small green gem was left where his palms had once been. 

 

Stephen lost consciousness. 

 

The sands of Titan covered three forms, each reaching mangled digits out towards the others. 

They came just short. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like some fresh, hot angst with a dash of quantum theory to start off your morning. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed (well, as much as you could), and drop a kudos or a comment to let me know any thoughts! Have a premise for a new future? Preferably awful? Thanks!


End file.
